New Year's Eve parties in Orlando: Airbnb to ban some U.S. bookings to limit house parties

Airbnb continues to crack down on "party houses" as it plans to bring some of that initiative to Orlando for New Year's Eve. 

The company said they'll be using heightened defenses to prevent disruptive parties over the New Year's Eve weekend. Some of those defenses include placing a ban on certain one-night bookings during New Year's Eve for entire home listings in Orlando and throughout the country. 

"Folks who have a history of negative reviews on our platform or who have no reviews at all don’t have that history, and it’s just not yet earn that trust," said Airbnb Director of Trust and Communications Ben Breit. 

The ban will affect guests who don't have a positive account history or no previous bookings at all on the platform. 

In August 2022, Airbnb introduced new anti-party tools in the U.S. to help identify potential high-risk reservations. The technology is designed to prevent a reservation attempt from going through. 

"When we look at people impacted by our policy we look at neighbors two neighbors care neighbors matter nobody wants to be kept up all night by a disruptive unauthorized party, said Breit. "Meanwhile vast majority of our guests don’t really care because you’re not throwing parties We’re talking about needles in a haystack here."

In August 2020, Airbnb announced a temporary ban on all parties and event listings globally to put an end to guests throwing unauthorized parties. Nearly two years later, Airbnb solidified the ban, officially codifying it as part of its policy. 

The company said since the defenses were first piloted in 2020, they estimate that they have contributed to a year-over-year global drop in rates of party incidents over NYE of roughly 56%. 

In Orlando, over 1,400 people were deterred by multiple anti-party defenses from booking entire home listings over New Year's Eve weekend in 2021. 

In the past, the company has also enforced anti-party restrictions for Halloween 2021, blocking all one-night reservations for entire home listings in the U.S. and Canada.  

Breit said Airbnb's most seasoned hosts know what to look for really a lot of it is asking questions when someone books.